Nitin Gadkari leaks gardening secret, wants you to urinate on plants

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari uses his own urine to water some plants in his garden and wants others to follow his example

New Delhi: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has revealed that he uses his own urine to water some plants in the garden at his official bungalow in Delhi and that the plants which "were given urine instead of water grew one-and-half times bigger".

"I have started an experiment in Delhi... I have started storing my urine in a 50 litre can at my official residence in Delhi. It's a big government house which earlier belonged to (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi," Gadkari said, speaking at an event in Nagpur on Monday.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari

The human urine contains a lot of urea and nitrogen compounds, and it could be an alternative to fertilisers, he said.

"An acre of organic farming is possible on the bungalow premises, which even has trees. I instructed my gardener to try urine for one tree and plain water for others. Urine is a manure which has urea and nitrogen," he said, urging the audience to try out the experiment.

Asking the farmers of Nagpur, famed for its succulent oranges, to use ‘urine therapy’, Gadkari said they will soon observe how fast the trees grow.

"If you water an orange tree with this, you observe its growth rate. The plants which were given urine instead of water grew one and half times bigger than those which were given water," he said.

His revelation had the social media aflush with hilarious comments on Tuesday.

Gadkari’s advice drew a swarm of merry comments on Twitter with hashtag ‘GadkariLeaks’.

“PM says pee in toilets. #Gadkari says pee in the garden. The nation wants to know where to pee,” one twitter post said, apparently referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign to end the practice of defecating in the open.

“The Modi govt has renamed many schemes but no word yet on changing Small-Scale Irrigation Scheme to Nitin Gadkari Laghu Sinchaai Pariyojana,” said another post.

Another member of the Twitterati posted the picture of a tree, calling it Gadkari’s outdoor washroom, while yet another post said,”Nitin Gadkari leaks farm policy- shares with farmers urine’s fertilising powers.”